Even though this footage is from the inferior Disney — the land one — it is from 1957 and looks amazing. It’s as if we hopped in a TARDIS, meant to go somewhere entirely different, then ended up in 1957 California. Today I learned footage from 1957 Disneyland is simultaneously pretty and eerie.

Disney is joining the ranks of Pixar, Apple, and Google by releasing their own official “It Get’s Better“ video. The clip, almost 8 minutes long, features a whole bunch of Disney employees telling stories about the bullying and harassment that they went through as kids and try to encourage anyone and everyone that it gets better. They must be right. I mean, these guys work at Disney now. If that’s not better, I don’t know what is.

Disney’s Recess, that cartoon you first started watching in college because you were waiting for reruns of Boy Meets World to come on and you always turned on the television too early, is a show you probably found out was secretly not for kids. Dealing with somewhat, but not always hidden mature themes, and regularly having the plot of an episode be a retelling of some important event in history, Recess was better than the older crowd probably thought at a glance. Well, the Sheridan College Media Arts Class of 2013 sure realized the quality of the show, and recreated the opening sequence shot-for-shot. Feel free to compare and contrast the opening sequences on the always useful YouTube Doubler.

YouTube, which has been trying to get into the original content game, and Disney, which has been trying to get into the hip-YouTube-videos game, have decided to team up and create an official Disney YouTube channel which will be the exclusive home to some new Disney animated shorts coming down the pipe. The two partners are looking to spend somewhere in the area of $10 to $15 million to develop series which will be available on Disney.com as well as the Disney channel at YouTube proper.

Yesterday, an unthinkable event that surely shattered the young lives of millions of children occurred: the Club Penguin website went down. The MMO, which is owned by Disney, has been popular among children for years for its numerous minigames and amusing, brightly colored cold-weather water fowl.

In an uncharacteristically scatterbrained move, Disney apparently neglected to renew the domain registration on June 13. Forgetting to renew the domain is particularly unusual considering that Disney dished out $350 million for the site in 2007. But everyone makes mistakes, and by June 20 the site was completely inaccessible. The issue first came to light on Club Penguin fansites and blogs. Shortly thereafter, Disney apparently contacted their hosting service and renewed the domain. However, it may take sometime for worldwide servers to catch up. Though it may take some time, this sad chapter in Club Penguin history is nearly closed.

But that cannot undue the damage. Decades from now, today’s youngsters will fall silent with pained faces when someone asks if they remember where they were when Club Penguin was inaccessible for a few days.

(via Geek.com)

Walt Disney World was always a place one could visit to see some pretty amazing technology, from walking robots, to garbage cans that follow people around and yell at them, to exhibits dedicated to showcasing the latest in practical technology. Nowadays, publicly available, consumer-attainable technology has made some fairly giant strides, bridging the gap between Disney’s tech and what people can do in the comfort of their own living room, but that doesn’t mean the anthropomorphic character supporting entertainment giant can’t move with the times. The above video, brought to us by Inside the Magic, shows that in a world of being able to access anything anywhere one can obtain a signal, Disney can still stay ahead of the curve.

In Walt Disney World (the Florida one), the Haunted Mansion ride ended with a fun gag where the passenger cars–known as Doom Buggies–passed by mirrors, which showed ghosts “hitchhiking” in the cars with the passengers, purporting that the ghosts would be going home with said passengers, kindly haunting them for all eternity. Though primitive by today’s standards, the ride used half-silvered mirrors to achieve the effect of the ghosts sitting with the passengers. Well, Disney brought the ghosts into the modern era by using a combination of “digital” mirrors and sensors that allow the ghosts not only to appear in the buggies, but interact with the passengers within as well. The above video shows the ghosts playing a few tricks on the passengers, such as swapping heads with them, giving them their ghostly beards and ripping their heads off and blowing them up like a balloon before letting them sputter away. The quality of the video becomes better as it goes on, so make sure to stick with it until the end to get a clearer view of the ghostly pranks.

(via Boing Boing)

Not an April Fools’ joke: On the first of the month, e-mail marketing firm Epsilon disclosed that it had been subject to a security breach, leaving the email addresses and names of customers exposed. While Epsilon may not be a household name, many of the clients on whose behalf it handles email newsletters and updates are: Among them, Best Buy, TiVo, Walgreens, Kroger, Brookstone, Disney, Destinations, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citi, McKinsey & Company, and even The College Board.

While Epsilon says that “a rigorous assessment determined that no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk,” the breach remains a big deal in that it could leave the people affected more vulnerable to phishing attacks. It stands to reason that malicious emails that address recipients by name and appear to come from the brands that people regularly receive email from are more likely to successfully hoodwink people than are blind emails.

To this end, many, though not all, of the brands impacted by the breach have sent out emails notifying customers to be aware. As Epsilon has refused to disclose which of its clients’ email databases were affected, it’s possible that more brands will announce that their customers’ data was compromised. To this end, if you regularly receive emails from the brands mentioned above, the brands mentioned here, or any major brands, it’s best to stay on the safe side and be extra vigilant until more information becomes available.

(Security Week via Consumerist)

We’re hard at work preparing The Mary Sue for launch next week, but in the meantime we thought you’d like to see one of the things we just put together.  The Mary Sue will go live this coming Monday, but for now feel free to follow us on Twitter @The_MarySue. – Susana

The Hipster Princesses Meme began humbly, with only Ariel, but unlike its red haired founder, this meme has legs.  It’s now expanded to lay its photoshopped plastic spectacles over a wide swath of female Disney characters.

We’ve put nineteen more of our favorites after the jump.  After all, we’ve been watching this meme since before it became mainstream.

Zach Anner is back! (ZachAnner on YouTube)

A Love Poem to Video Games (Kotaku)

93% of parents are around when video games are purchased. Hm. (Entertainment Software Association)

LEGOs make even A Clockwork Orange adorable! (Surf With Berserk)

Neil Gaiman on Internet piracy, selling more books (OpenRightsGroup on YouTube)

How to introduce your kids to D&D (The Mule Abides)

Anatomical sleeping bag. Thank you, Japan. (Weekly ASCII Store)

(Top pic via Neatorama)

It’s the year 1965, and Disney has just finished it’s latest live-action block buster film Up!. It’s a star-studded cast, with Spencer Tracey, Kirk Douglas, and that lecherous talking dog from A Boy And His Dog. Throw in a flying house and  giant bird, and it’s the hit that never was.

(Ivan Guerrero via BuzzFeed)